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From: lwall@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall)
Newsgroups: comp.edu,comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Summary of responses regarding Jim Joyces Unix Bookstore
Keywords: books, unix, mail order
Message-ID: <8834@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
Date: 23 Jul 90 18:07:35 GMT
References: <1581@stsci.edu> <37505@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <7858@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU> <1990Jul17.174054.29575@nbc1.ge.com> <12565@netcom.UUCP>
Reply-To: lwall@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
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In article <12565@netcom.UUCP> ergo@netcom.UUCP (Isaac Rabinovitch) writes:
: There's another, more legitimate difference.  B. Dalton employees are
: not long on computer expertise (though they no longer think that Unix
: is a programming language!), and can't give you much help on selecting
: books.

That's interesting.  I think Unix IS a programming language.  A big,
complicated, hard-to-learn, not-very-portable, highly undisciplined
language with several alternate syntaxes--an unholy, convulsing, constantly
mutating mixture of minimalism and pluralism--an entire ecosystem of
programming.

That doesn't mean I don't like it, of course.  :-)

And THAT doesn't mean I won't try to change it.

Somewhere there's got to be a balance between "I love you just the way
you are" and "Be all that you can be".

But when you start looking at Unix as a language, it gets a little ugly.

Larry Wall
lwall@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov